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Visualizing the Common Core Curriculum

Visualizing the Common Core Curriculum

Credit Rian Dundon

Visualizing the Common Core Curriculum

By Rena SilvermanAug. 3, 2015Aug. 3, 2015

Rian Dundon had to go back to high school for nine months last year. Mind you, he was already a working photojournalist. His assignment was to create a visual narrative for the Common Core, the educational initiative that has generated as much controversy as it has expectations.

There are so many buzzwords associated with the Common Core — career readiness, deeper learning, critical thinking — that it’s hard to know what it all even means. Adopted by over 40 states, the educational initiative that is now in its fifth year, aims to prepare students from kindergarten through high school for entry-level careers, training programs or college.

But, what does that actually look like? For some parents who are unable to engage with teachers directly in the classroom, either because of work or language barriers, it can be a pile of papers, a confused child struggling to decipher math problems, strange new tests, or maybe a website with some Frequently Asked Questions.

In California, the state with the largest public school system, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation partnered with New America Media last year to see if they could help these parents understand the initiative. Together, they awarded nine fellowships to local journalists, and Mr. Dundon was asked to translate the Common Core into a visual narrative.

Students play handball during lunch period at W.C. Overfelt High School in San Jose, Calif., March 2015.Credit Rian Dundon

“The 21st century job force is Silicon Valley, so it seems particularly salient to look at Common Core in Silicon Valley and how it was succeeding or not,” Mr. Dundon said, “because if they can’t succeed here then they can’t succeed anywhere.”

When he began, the first thing he thought was: “How do you visualize something like academic policy?”

At first knowing “zero” about the Common Core, he chose to document three high schools in the area: Design Tech High School in Millbrae, which he called, “a new experimental charter school, kind of established under the design thinking principles of Stanford Design School,” Pescadero High School, a rural school, he said, with just under 100 students, and the William C. Overfelt High School in east San Jose, where, he said, “they’re doing a lot with a very little.”

With the help of the foundation, Mr. Dundon was able to gain access to schools; classrooms; education conferences, where policy makers and administrators talked about Common Core; and groups of teachers who Mr. Dundon described as, “equally confused about it.”

“There is a certain obtuseness to the language that’s used,” he said. “The thick packets that are handed out, trying to explain how you should change your curriculum or whatnot. I mean, it is a good thing. It is making education less about following a teacher on a stage talking at the students and more towards participatory learning, which essentially is a good thing, I believe. But, the way that it’s packaged, the way that it’s wrapped, the message can become a little bit lost I think, in all the buzzwords and all the language.”

Photographing that message, wasn’t easy at first. “I mean, all this stuff is really dry right?” he said. “So, I went into this being like, ‘this is not a very visual story.’”

But, during his first visit to Overfelt High School, Mr. Dundon was able to solidify his approach, concentrating on how the students and teachers relate to their classrooms and schools. “Because if we look at architecture,” he said, “something like a big public high school and then a policy like the Common Core can be reflected through the spaces.”

Photo

Students leave campus after final bell at W.C. Overfelt High School in San Jose, Calif., February 2015.Credit Rian Dundon

That is perhaps why we see, in one photograph, a long alleyway between the back of a building and a wired fence, all in focus, as students play handball at Overfelt during a lunch break. Or why another photo shows Design Tech students sitting in their newly-purchased chairs equipped with wheels and desk space for laptops. Here, the corner of the room is just off the center of the frame behind the students, flanked by some writing on whiteboards.

Although, Mr. Dundon said he saw many laptop computers in all the schools — especially during standardized tests — he was careful not to focus too much on technology.

“I don’t want to paint a picture like everyone is on a laptop all the time,” he said. “What’s interesting is seeing the way these things are applied to an old system.”

And so, there is the pile of No. 2 pencils with a caption that begins, “It seems sometimes like the old methods are best.” At Overfelt, where the photograph was taken, tests that are not standardized are sometimes done with pencil and paper.

After his nine-month fellowship, he is still not quite sure he understands the concept of the Common Core.

“I guess high school feels the same way it always did,” he said. “There is still the gym, there’s still the team rivalries and the kids hanging out in the back of the parking lot and I mean, it’s still the same place.”